Where to buy Belgian yeasts

OK, here I am, a 35-year brewer (kits and extracts) and yesterday I dipped my toes in the AG wort - sorry, water - for the very first time. Next week, I'm doing another 'simple' ale to go with the 'simple' porter I did yesterday - perhaps a bog-standard strong bitter.

However, I want to plan ahead.

I am a HUGE fan of Belgian beers (several trips to that beautiful country of a thousand beautiful beers) and have brewed many of the Brewferm kits with great success (hic) but.....

It's not enough. I really, REALLY want to brew an AG Belgian style - say a kick-ass tripel in the next few weeks. So where do I buy the yeast? I mentioned 'Belgian' at a couple of local home brew shops in the last week, and they've either got Nottingham or nothing.

I've just spent a frustrating half an hour on t'internets looking for a supplier in the UK - but I've not found one. If it's that difficult, I shall purchase a Brewferm kit (shudder) and harvest that - or drink myself into oblivion with a few bottles of Whimay Chite (hic) sorry, Chimay White - and harvest that - but it would help my liver if I could just buy something like WLP550 (that's the Achouffe yeast, I think).

Anyone got any clues (linky would be great)

Edit: I found it, thanks to Vossy1's link to White Labs, I found their UK stockists.

In the UK Its Hop and Grape Or the Malt Miller

Cheers.

I've been on the Hop and Grape website for the last hour.

Mrs Luckyeddie reckoned it reminded her of the time we took our first-born to Toys R Us for the first time about 28 years ago. I was like "Oh, I want some of that" and "I can't do without THAT malt" etc. I've now planned AG3 and AG4 (AG2 is a common-or-garden bitter for the coming weekend).

Good luck. I really enjoy brewing and drinking Belgian beers as well. I don't have any experience with White Labs' yeasts because I use Wyeast's yeasts. They have some excellent Belgian strains as well.

-baz

eddie - i`m a big fan of begian beers to Brew like a monk by Stan Hieronymus is a great read and goes into a lot of detail of the history of belgian brewing, it`s not strictly a recipe book but has many recipes and style guides including yeast types and where strains are avaliable and under what name.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brew-Like-Monk- ... 572&sr=8-1

makes you thirsty reading it though :whistle:

I've brewed a couple of Belgians now which have been well rated and received - it's a LOT of fun (see link in sig to silly brew day 'brewing like monks' on Jim's forum!) using the blended yeast and the chimay yeast.

Make sure you have STRONG bottles too - they're primed high and are real potential bottle bombs, worth saving chimay bottles and other proper strong beer bottles for them.

Yeasts
Malt Miller is your best bet for whitelabs vials - http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.ph ... t&catId=15
Wyeast also really good and same strains - Thrifty shopper is a good source for those: http://www.thethriftyshopper.co.uk/all- ... yeast.aspx or Brew UK http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/ingredien ... yeast.html

(Hop and Grape unfortunately seem to inflate their prices for liquid yeasts)

A list of which is which is at http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast.htm partially reproduced for white labs below:

WLP500 - Trappist Ale - Chimay
WLP510 - Bastogne Belgian Ale - Orval (PLATINUM - May/June 2011)
WLP515 - Antwerp Ale Yeast - De Koninck
WLP530 - Abbey Ale Yeast - Westmalle (+ Achel / Westvleteren)
WLP540 - Abbey IV Ale Yeast - Rochefort (PLATINUM Jul/Aug 2011)
WLP550 - Belgian Ale Yeast - Achouffe
WLP565 - Belgian Saison - Brasserie Dupont (Saison Dupont)
WLP566 - Saison II - Vieille Provision Saison Dupont (PLATINUM Jul/Aug 2011)
WLP570 - Belgian Golden Ale - Duvel (Moortgart)
WLP575 - Belgian Style Ale Yeast Blend of WLP500, WLP530, WLP550

Worth keeping an eye on their ltd. edition platinum strains too for other ones - noted above, Rob will order them in:
http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/platinum-2011.html

1214 - Belgian ale - Chimay
1388 - Belgian Strong ale - Duvel (Moortgart)
1762 - Abbey II - Rochefort
3522 - Belgian Ardennes - Achouffe
3538 - Leuven Pale Ale - Corsendonk-Bocq
3711 - French Saison - Brasserie Thiriez
3724 - Belgian Saison Yeast - Saison du Pont
3725 - Biere De Garde - Soy-Erezée (Fontome) (Jan-Mar 2011)
3726 - Farmhouse Ale - Blaugies, Belgium
3763 - Roeselare Ale Blend - Rodenbach
3787 - Trappish High Gravity - Westmalle (and Achel / Westvleteren)
3789 - Trappist Blend - Orval? (Jan-March 2011)
3864 - Canadian/Belgian Ale Yeast - Unibroue

Their special yeast release schedule is at http://www.wyeastlab.com/vssprogram.cfm?website=2 I think Brew UK or Thirfty will order in (or may get them anyway)

And then there's harvesting yeasts from bottles too - which isn't as good with high gravity brews now that the strains from white labs are available but good for other beers and yeasts.

Reading and Learning
Like Rick I would also HIGHLY recommend buying "Brew Like a Monk" from Amazon for loads of info on making these styles, blog at http://www.brewlikeamonk.com/ book at amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... rtravelers

Also Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing has good info on belgian styles, site at http://www.radicalbrewing.com/rbabout.html book at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Radical-Brewing ... pd_sim_b_5 the other books in the BP series are also good - "Farmhouse Ales" for Saison and Biere du Garde + "Wild Brews" for Lambic and Flanders Red and Oud Bruin styles. Brewing with wheat is also an excellent book for Belgian Wit + weissen and other wheat styles.

Great info there lancsSteve! :thumb:

I have Brew Like a Monk, Radical Brewing, and a third one Belgian Ale by Pierre Rajotte. There is a lot of great information in those. For me, brewing Belgian beers is about experimenting and finding what works for me. I've used many different types of sugars with varying results. I've tried fermenting at the higher temps for which the Belgians are known and I've done lower temps as well. Those beers are about having fun!

Thanks, guys. My yeast arrived last week - it's tucked up in the fridge at the moment. I'm going to spend a couple of weeks propagating it and then split 4 or 5 ways - I'm also going to propagate cultures from some Belgian beers for a giggle - I've got some Orval, Chimay White, Duvel and Westmalle Dubbel in just for this purpose. Of course, that means it's necessary to drink most of the beer to get at the yeast. It's a hard job, but somebody's got to do it.

The idea is to prepare a single batch then split into gallon carboys after the boil and chill, then pitch different yeasts. I'm not trying to reproduce the characteristics of the beers - really just wanting to study the effects different yeasts have on the same recipe.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's called 'science', and it's been done before.

Hans: Zis ist going to be eine sehr gut lager, Klaus.
Klaus: Ja. Ze vort ist chillink nicely. I love ze schmell of ze Pilsner malt und ze Saaz hops.
Hans: Now I haf eine hot lunch date mit Mimi. I can trust you to pitch ze yeast, Klaus?
Klaus: Oh, ja. Zat Mimi - I heff eine knackwurst in mein lederhosen for zat
Hans: Ja, ja. Like she vould look at you. Anyvays, see you in eine hour.
(half an hour later...)
Klaus: Hans does not trust me, he thinks I am eine dumkopf... oh scheisse. Vat heff I done?
(Hans returns)
Klaus: I heff pitched ze alt yeast by mistake - it was eine grossen bloomer und ich bin eine tit.
Hans: Ach. Vell, let's ferment it anyvay - ve can call it 'Kolsch' - it's Mimi's surname.

we used wlp500 trappist ale yeast from whitelabs

wendy1971 said:

we used wlp500 trappist ale yeast from whitelabs

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Yep - that's the one I got. I've got to make my candi sugar first. I shall make a kilo today

you can but we never used any sugar :thumb: our recipe never wanted sugar in it

wendy1971 said:

you can but we never used any sugar :thumb: our recipe never wanted sugar in it

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Yes, there are all sorts of Belgian recipes for 'holy water', but I've bought a sugar thermometer so I need to justify it. I was going to do it today but I brewed an IPA instead. Much more fun. Sugar tomorrow night.

:party:

I've also just ordered 'Brew Like A Monk' from Amazon.

Afterwards, I hope to write my own book: "Nissed Like A Pewt".

luckyeddie said:

I'm also going to propagate cultures from some Belgian beers for a giggle - I've got some Orval, Chimay White, Duvel and Westmalle Dubbel in just for this purpose. Of course, that means it's necessary to drink most of the beer to get at the yeast. It's a hard job, but somebody's got to do it.

The idea is to prepare a single batch then split into gallon carboys after the boil and chill, then pitch different yeasts. I'm not trying to reproduce the characteristics of the beers - really just wanting to study the effects different yeasts have on the same recipe

Click to expand...

Sounds like a good plan. With a serious note of caution to sound: be careful with the orval! It's a mixed culture including brettanomyces, Yup wild yeast is in there and makes it very different from the other trappist beers and change a huge amount over time. So pay a lot of attention about what contacts what, sterilization and separation lest you let brett loose in your brewery!

I was lucky to try a 2yr old bottle (thanks to unpopularity but stable stock at the Sun in Lancaster :)) and a 6 month old (from the excellent Hawkshead Brewery beer hall in Staveley who now sell a lot of Belgian beers) this weekend. Incredibly different: hoppy and bright at 6mth with brett horse sourness in the background, but at 2yrs it's FAR drier and seriously dominant leathery brett and no hop flavour or aroma remaining.)

I'm waiting for the wyeast orval mix to arrive from Brew UK and planning to brew this weekend which I'll be busing for primary. Then I've re-cultured the yeast from the two aforementioned orval bottles, my plan is to use this for bottle re-fermentation (which I think I'll do with other Belgian's in the future where I can get the primary yeast from lists above).

For the Orval I'm going to use an old brew bucket and mark it along with any tubing, brushes etc and keep them totally separated from the rest of my fermenting kit. Can't be too safe - especially with brushes and syphone tube and plastic buckets IMHO. Will then be using this FV and other kit again in the summer for a Leipziger Gose - using the Wyeast 3191 berlinner weisse blend (saccaromyces, lactobacillus and brettanomyces) and maybe a more lacticly sour sour Belgian wit too.

Not necessary with non-wild yeasts but all I've read counsels using an EXTREME amount of caution when messing around with wild yeasts like Orval's.

I need to get an Orval clone going sometime soon, I love that beer

I have used their primary strain, Bastogne ale yeast from white labs. Worked really well in a tripel.

mysterio said:

I need to get an Orval clone going sometime soon, I love that beer
I have used their primary strain, Bastogne ale yeast from white labs. Worked really well in a tripel.

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Hi mysterio :

I may do one this weekend - the wyeast one is out at the moment and in the post to me. Any thoughts/tips on using it? (Temp control, brett character etc)

Thinking of using Golden Promise (or pilsener) + carared + some palm sugar (or home-made candi or just sugar)
EKGs and maybe some Bobek